


Veteran of the Psychic Wars

by Alara J Rogers (AlaraJRogers)



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: BAMF!Charles, M/M, background Raven/Irene, because I stick Raven/Irene in all my Charles/Erik fics, canon-compliant AU, domestic Erik, is it a songfic if the lyrics never appear, mysterious Lovecraftian horrors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-26
Updated: 2012-05-26
Packaged: 2017-11-06 01:05:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/413015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlaraJRogers/pseuds/Alara%20J%20Rogers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only the telepaths can protect Earth from Them. And only the ones they love can keep the telepaths from falling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Veteran of the Psychic Wars

When he's not in the safe house, Erik wears the helmet, all the time. It's irritating – he feels like he has permanent helmet hair, and his sweat makes him itch and it's hard to even rub his eyes – but he has to remain uncompromised.  Has to be pure, be only himself, for Charles. 

The humans in the coffee shop stare at him.  He wants to slap them, to demand if they know what he does, who he protects, what the one he protects protects _them_ from.  They're ignorant, safe little sheep, privileged and soft.  He hates them for their ignorance... and envies them the luxury.  They have no idea what's out there, and sometimes, sometimes he wishes he didn't either. 

And then the call comes in and it's Raven at the switchboard, Raven interfacing for Irene, no helmet on her but Charles trained her and Irene would see through a compromise before it happened anyway, and she says, "Erik, get back here.  They're bringing Charles in." 

Four words of terror.  If they're bringing Charles in, then he's not returning on his own power.  He leaves before the barista finishes making his coffee, running for the door and catching the lines, pulling on a thread of magnetic power and hurtling into the air, because Charles. 

* * *

They have a helmet on Charles. 

They have a helmet on Charles, and he's shaking, his eyes wild and unfocused.  Emma looks up at him, cool and collected in diamond perfection, and that's how he knows she's scared, because she's diamond.  Charles has a helmet on and Emma is diamond _anyway._   "He's calling for you," she says. 

Charles is not actually saying anything.  He's eerily silent, in fact, shaking like he has the DT's and white as a sheet but he makes no sound.  Even his breathing is too quiet. 

"Get out," Erik says. 

"I should monitor--" 

"He won't hurt me," Erik says, and means that if Charles was defeated, if Charles was overtaken and compromised, then Erik welcomes being lobotomized by whatever's living in Charles' head instead of him.  Charles-actual will never harm him, and a not-Charles in there would mean that Charles' body has to die, and if Charles is dead in a living body then Erik wants to go with him, preferably after killing the thing that ate his mind.  But it won't happen.  It didn't happen.  Because this is Charles and Charles has never been defeated and Erik doesn't want to live in the world where he can be.  Because the world is a shithole and people are stupid and venal and cruel and everyone's out for themselves and everyone's ruled by hate and fear, everyone's a monster under the skin, all except Charles.  And Erik has figured out that he doesn't want to live in the world where Charles doesn't win. "Go!" 

Emma goes.  Erik grabs Charles' hands.  "It's me, Charles, it's me," he says, and with his powers he pulls off both helmets at the same time. 

Charles' mind rushes in at him and it's like the ocean, he's going under, drowning, a tidal flood swamping everything he is and Charles is burning, light so bright it sears Erik's eyes even though there's no real light and his real eyes are closed, and he's going down, down, a tiny speck in an ocean of burning light, calling out.  _Charles!  Charles, it's me!  This is real, you're here, you're with me!_

The ocean settles around him.  A bubble forms of air, and the light immediately around him darkens and cools, turning purple and blue so it no longer burns him.  _Erik?_ an uncertain voice calls, from everywhere.  _Erik?  Are you real?_

_I'm real, Charles, I'm real, this is real, you're in the safe house.  I've been wearing the helmet, I'm uncompromised.  I'm me.  Are you you, Charles?_

_I don't remember.  I don't remember who I am.  I don't... but you're Erik, aren't you?  You're real?_

_I'm real._   He swims, propelling himself through the ocean that isn't really there, following the most tenuous sense of direction.  Charles' ego is not in fact magnetic north, but he's oriented to it the same way he's oriented to a spot off the coast of Baffin Island, Canada, and he can follow through any amount of blinding light or purple darkness or oceans and oceans of desperate power to find his way.  _I'm coming, Charles.  I know who you are.  I'll show you._

_They showed me... oh, god, They showed me... things, Erik.  Such... such horrible things... I don't remember who I am anymore, I don't remember what's real, who's alive, what have I done?  I didn't... did I?_

_You didn't,_ Erik says reassuringly.  He doesn't know what it is They tried to make Charles remember doing, but if They sent the image, then Charles didn't do it, whatever it was.  _Stay calm.  I'll find you._

_Oh, god, Erik, I don't remember what I did, I don't remember who I am... help me, please, please, help me..._

_I know who you are._   And now he's reached the center of the ocean, the image of a pale naked man curled in a tight fetal ball.  There's a membrane around the man, but it's a cell membrane.  It has receptors designed to keep anything out except the one shape that fits, the key to the lock around Charles' center of being, and that one shape is Erik Lehnsherr.  He molds himself against the membrane and it gives way for him, allowing him inside.  _I'm here, Charles.  I'm here._

The fetal ball does not uncurl.  The man tightens, in fact, and shudders violently.  _How do I know you're real?_

Erik touches Charles' back, stroking him.  He's distantly aware that in real life he's doing the same thing, except there he's touching Charles' shirt because in real life Charles isn't naked.  _I am real.  You know I'm real.  You know nothing gets through the helmet, you know the shape of my mind._

_I know,_   Charles whispers.  _I know I know.  And anything I know could be Them.  I know everything you are, Erik, so how could I tell if you're real or a fantasy?_

_Open your eyes, Charles._

_How can I tell..._

_Open your real eyes._   Erik refocuses, pulls his awareness back out of Charles' mind with effort, and moves Charles' helmet with his power, sliding it back onto Charles's head. 

This time Charles gasps.  His eyes were open all along, but they're focusing now, looking up, straight at Erik.  He speaks, his voice rasping and hoarse and very weak.  "Y... you're... still there... I'm, I'm alone but you... you're still..." 

"They're not in your head now, Charles.  They can't be.  The helmet's on you." 

"What if I'm imagining it?" Charles whispers. 

Erik snorts in exasperation.  "Your imagination isn't _that_ good." 

Charles smiles weakly, and Erik pulls the helmet off him again, letting the connection re-form.  This time Charles isn't desperate and uncontrolled, so it's like sinking down gently into the ocean, not being drowned by it.  _See my memories.  All the things that happened to me since you went out to fight.  Taste the terrible coffee I drank yesterday, listen to the cacophony of the taxi drivers' horns when I froze them all to let Caliban and Callisto come up from the underground, feel the memory of the cold sheets I slept on and the loneliness I felt because you weren't there to warm me.  Ten days of memory and it's far more than you could ever make up, far more detailed, the things I notice are not what you notice, the things that anger me are not what anger you, I'm real.  I'm not you, I'm not something you imagined.  I'm Erik.  And I tell you that you are Charles Xavier, and you're real, and I know you._

He pulls astral Charles through the membrane, feels him expand to fill his own mind again, slowly, hesitantly, like a man burned and afraid to touch the fire again, but he's doing it.  _Charles, you are so very brave_ , Erik whispers, and in real life he holds the telepath close, pressing his weight against Charles, nuzzling against his neck, reminding him of what is real.  

"I'm not brave," Charles says aloud, though his voice is still hoarse and weak.  "I just... I do what I have to do, that's all." 

"They don't appreciate you," Erik says.  "They should have parades in your honor.  You and all the telepaths, but especially you.  They should sing your praises, they should name their children after you." 

"There are more than enough boys named Charles in the world." 

"You know that's not what I mean." 

Charles laughs, weakly.  "My friend, you know why they don't throw parades for us.  If they knew... about Them..." 

Erik knows.  Only a small, select cadre of people are allowed to know.  Only a small group of humans, and an even smaller group of mutants – the telepaths who fight this war, and their anchors.  And the few non-telepath psychics who serve the war effort in other ways, like Irene, whose precognition senses the breaches before they happen, and _their_ anchors.  

Erik has never seen Them.  He can't; he's not psychic.  His power is based in the world of the real, in physics and the dance of microscopic particles and elemental forces, tiny and unseeable but equally real whether humans (and mutants) perceive them or not.  But he knows They're out there.  He wakes at night shaking, dripping with sweat, screaming with nightmares... and he's used to that, after the horror of his childhood, after the Holocaust and Shaw and everything else, but these aren't the nightmares he used to have, images of the Nazis and Schmidt's lab and his mother's dead body.  These are nightmares so dread and horrifying he can't even describe them in words when he awakes, and that's only the merest echo of their presence coming into our dimension, only the faintest flicker of memory spillover from Charles.  He's not a man easily frightened, but They terrify him.  And he sleeps beside the greatest warrior against Them that Earth has. 

They feed on terror.  If the ordinary people of the Earth knew there were psychic entities from a dimension of ultimate horror pressing their way into this dimension, preparing to feed on humanity's collective mind, and to stimulate terror and horror and pain and despair in every mind on the planet before They consume it... humanity (and mutantkind, for that matter) would be overwhelmed by a paroxysm of fear, and the fear would strengthen Them, giving Them the energy They need to break through Earth's defenses once and for all.  So humans can't know, unless they're part of the war effort.  Mutants can't know, unless they're psychics, or can serve as anchors to psychics, can stand behind the telepaths and the precogs and the clairvoyants and hold them up with love when the wounded warriors falter.  

There are several pairs.  Young Jean draws on younger Scott.  Sean, of all people, anchors Emma.  Callisto, herself like Erik, a scarred warrior of real-world battle, tends Caliban.  Precognitive Irene is reminded of who she is by Raven, who changes her own surface so fluidly and yet never loses sight of who she is, or who Irene is.  Tessa's a weak telepath but a genius, so she uses math and science against the inchoate horrors of no fixed reality, and turns for strength to her son, Sebastian Junior, who Erik tries very hard not to hate because he can't hold it against the boy who his father was.  Stephen Strange has a human woman named Clea, a disciple of some sort of mystic art that Erik doesn't believe in, but Strange apparently does and that's all he needs.  Betsy Braddock has a teenage boy named Doug Ramsey, not her lover – she says that's absurd, with the age difference – but the one who can see her for who she is, who can tell her her identity in the deep grammar of the mind and remind her of what is real. 

Erik believes in only one thing, and that is Charles Xavier.  His telepath, his warrior.  The man he supports and anchors and helps to return to himself, battle after battle, because Erik can't fight this war.  Magnetism is of no use against creatures from a reality where physics doesn't apply.  He hates it, he'd give anything to fight by Charles' side, but he can't.  Powerful as he is in reality, his powers are useless against the Z'noxx... also called by some the Elder Gods, also called by almost everyone who knows of them Them. 

He changes the subject.  "You're too thin, Charles.  You need to keep your strength up." 

"I need to go back," Charles says.  "Jean and Caliban can't hold the line for long." 

"You're burning yourself out.  You can't keep going back into battle when you're not rested enough.  Charles, you may be the most powerful telepath on Earth, but you're not superhuman... well, not _that_ superhuman.  You're not invulnerable, in any case.  You can fall.  It happened to Farouk, and you say he was almost as powerful as you are." 

Charles nods.  Farouk had been an evil man, a sybarite who used his telepathy to gain wealth and take pleasure at the expense of others' free will, but he'd been a powerful telepath and he hadn't been any more willing to let things from another dimension eat the minds of humanity than any of the other telepaths... there'd have been no one left for Farouk to control and hold power over.  So Farouk had joined the battle... and fallen, and now he's the Shadow King, a monstrous dark presence on the astral plane, a beachhead for Them to force the defenses of Earth open.  A telepathic scientist named Nathaniel Essex, a sociopath who can't be allowed into battle because they've learned that those who cannot or do not love cannot be anchored, and will fall like Farouk did, dedicates his contribution to the war effort by keeping the Shadow King caged.  No one thinks this will actually work for very long... but at least, Essex is a sociopath who loves only science, is obsessed with order and control, and has nothing but contempt for the pleasures of the flesh. The Shadow King and his dark masters represent nothing but untrammeled id and the reign of chaos.  They have nothing to tempt Essex with.  

"Farouk was powerful," Charles says.  "And he knew more about telepathic combat than even I do.  But he had no anchor.  I have you.  I know you'll never let me lose myself." 

Erik sighs.  "I'm not omnipotent either.  I love you more than life, Charles, but love does not, in fact, conquer all.  You need to stop thinking you can save the world single-handedly, or that you need to." 

"Except I do," Charles says softly.  "The war's... not going well, Erik.  Emma needs to get back on the lines, and... I need to go back." 

"You can't.  It'll destroy you." 

"Better me than the whole human race." 

"If we lose you in battle, the whole human race is doomed anyway." 

Charles takes a deep breath.  "Two days, Erik.  Two days and then I go back." 

"Charles... no.  No.  You need more than that." 

"I do."  Charles nods, looking at the floor.  "I know that.  But Erik..." He looks up at his lover, and his blue eyes are steel, no human weakness in them at all.  Or perhaps stone, not steel; Erik could mold steel.  He has more hope of shaping a mountain of non-ferrous rock than he has of swaying Charles Xavier from his duty.  "It doesn't matter what I need.  We're down too many people.  I have to go back, just as soon as I'm physically capable of it." 

"You almost lost yourself."  _You almost destroyed me before you realized who I was.  You almost lost yourself forever._   There's no point in saying them.  Charles can read them in his mind.  "You might not come back, next time.  And we can't afford to have you go like Farouk did."  

"We've lost people," Charles says.  "Astrid's gone.  Cassie Webb... she should have been with Irene and the other precogs, but she insisted... and her body was too weak for it, and now she's dead.  Erik, there is a _five-year-old_ fighting with us.  If things are so serious that Franklin Richards is fighting the bogeyman in his pajamas, how can I justify staying home to rest?" 

Erik winces.  Not for the first time, he thinks that Reed and Susan are insane, that if Franklin was his son he'd lock the boy in the safehouse and never let him out where he could use his telepathy.  No matter how serious the battle he can't imagine how parents can justify letting their five year old fight monsters.  But then, Jean is thirteen, and has been fighting for a year, and Erik helped to train her.  

There are more telepaths on the way.  Emma's five cloned daughters are eight now, Jean's got a baby cousin named Chris who's already telepathic, there's a seven-year-old named Quentin growing up in the safe house because the Z'noxx can poison the minds of the baby telepaths before they're strong enough to defend themselves.  If they can just hold the line, long enough, there are reinforcements growing up, right now.  But what kind of a world is it where children have to go to war as soon as they're physically capable of it? 

"There has to be another way," Erik says. 

"I'm open to suggestions, my friend..." 

And that's the crux of it.  None of them have any other suggestions.  None of them know what else they could do, how any of this could be different.  Hank thinks he can build a gadget, on the principle of Cerebro, that would allow the telepaths to unite their minds into a single unit, perhaps even unite all the minds of humanity together in harmony.  So far it's a pipe dream; they can't spare any telepath long enough to help him build the thing.  Essex thinks they can clone telepaths and then implant the mental imprint of the parent so the telepath can be force-grown to adulthood. Erik's certain that no matter what he _says_ , Essex is in fact working on that.  And he should feel angry, because by definition doing such a thing involves doing invasive experiments on mutants, and no mutant telepath has consented so far... but he doesn't really care.  If the experiments produce enough fighters that Charles could actually come home for a month or two, or, g-d willing, the Z'noxx could be defeated and Charles could come home for good, then Erik finds he actually doesn't care how many mutants are harmed, as long as none of them are Charles. 

He doesn't like what that says about himself.  He thought the main difference between him and Shaw was that he would never harm a fellow mutant who didn't deliberately stand in his way.  It turns out there's a lot less difference than he thought there was, and it's made him rethink everything he was doing before the Z'noxx came, everything he thought he'd do when and if the world is finally saved from them. 

But it doesn't matter, because so far, nothing's worked anyway.  

Charles sits up on the bed, still trembling slightly.  "Two days, Erik.  We have two days.  Can we make the best of them?" 

"If by 'make the best of them' you're asking me to take you to our quarters and make mad passionate love to you for the next 47 and a half hours, I can agree with that plan," Erik says dryly. 

"Forty-seven and a half?" 

"Well, you like to have time to get dressed and take a bath before leaving the safe house, so half an hour for that." 

Charles laughs.  "Possibly we might fit some meals into that agenda as well." 

"I'll cook."  He cooks now, for Charles.  He's spent his life eating whatever he can get his hands on; food is fuel, and he spent too long starving to be picky.  But he's found that he has as much of an affinity for kitchens, with all the knives and metal stoves and pots and pans, as he does for hardware stores, construction sites and car repair shops, and his attempts to recreate the meals his mother made in his youth have proven to be one of the only things Charles can be tempted into eating.  Charles doesn't find comfort in food as Erik does; no one who loved Charles ever cooked for him, and the food of his childhood holds no emotional resonance... and after battles with Them, he has no appetite.  It takes Erik's cooking to comfort him and appeal to him emotionally enough that he can make himself eat it, because he feels what Erik feels when Erik remembers these dishes. 

It's bizarre, really.  He spent his life being a warrior, a soldier in a silent, private war, and he thought that was all he was.  A weapon, a broken excuse for a human being, a perfect killer but incapable of love.  And here he is now, playing domestic hausfrau to a man much gentler and softer than he is, cooking and caring for their apartment in the safe house and supporting that man with love... because that's the only thing he _can_ contribute to this war.  And he doesn't mind it, really.  The fact that he can't fight by Charles' side, that rankles, but at least he _can_ give his support, at least he can contribute in some way, and if it's by making noodle kugel for Charles, well then by g-d he's going to make noodle kugel. 

"Only if I can be with you while you do," Charles says.  When they're together, Charles needs to be in constant contact with Erik, either physically or mentally, and obviously if Erik is cooking Charles can't cuddle with him.  He means telepathically. 

"Of course," Erik says. 

He picks Charles up and carries him to their apartment.  At one point Charles would never have allowed this, too fiercely independent to let anyone treat him as if his disability made him helpless or childlike.  It's not like that now.  Charles doesn't have the physical strength to push a wheelchair very quickly because he spends so much time in the Astral Plane that his upper body muscles have grown weak... and Charles no longer has a need to prove himself in the real world, or the luxury of being able to.  It's entirely possible that if Charles could still walk he'd still be so weak that Erik would have to carry him.  

Charles doesn't have time for his body.  He relies on Erik to take care of it for him as a vessel for his mind, like a race car driver depends on his pit crew so he can focus his attention on the race.  Erik's afraid for him, because he's weaker and thinner every time he comes back, but if he tried chaining Charles to the bed so Charles might actually have time to recover, Charles would just mind control him to let go.  He doesn't dare wear the helmet in the safe house any more than he dares to leave the safe house without it; he can't keep Charles out of his mind because Charles might break without the connection to Erik to anchor him.  So he doesn't really have the luxury of doing anything Charles genuinely disapproves of any more. 

It doesn't matter.  The days when they were enemies are several years gone, now.  There's no time anymore to fight for mutantkind.  At least now, the government genuinely puts its resources into protecting them, and protecting other mutants, because one of the telepaths – it was Charles with Johnson, Emma with Nixon, and for all they know it may be Jean after the next election – shows a fraction of their memories of the Z'noxx War to every president of the United States, and every director of the CIA, and several select Congressmen after each election... and the politicians who do not immediately retire, or kill themselves, become devoted protectors of the mutants, because they've been told that that's what will keep the telepaths willing to continue to fight. Erik doesn't have any illusions that the policies will continue once the Z'noxx are defeated... but then, deep down inside, he doesn't believe the Z'noxx will be defeated, so he isn't really worried about it. 

They're all doomed.  He knows this, deep inside.  Charles can't keep going forever.  None of them can.  The telepaths will fall, and then humanity will go mad, and die.  Erik won't see it because he won't outlive Charles by much, if at all, but he's fairly certain of it. 

He keeps going because Charles doesn't believe it.  Charles still thinks they can win.  And Charles is the one fighting, Charles is the one who saw the Z'noxx coming, Charles is the one who recruited the other telepaths and set up this system of defense and got Erik to build the safe house so the Z'noxx couldn't infiltrate the minds of the telepaths' anchors... so if Charles thinks they have a chance, maybe they do.  Maybe Erik is wrong.  It's the only thing he can dare hope for, but he's never needed hope to keep going, anyway.  

This is all there is, he thinks as he floats down the hallway, Charles in his arms.  There's nothing but this endless horrible war and these tiny moments of respite between battles, and there will never be anything else until they're all dead.  

He can't think these things.  Not around Charles.  Not when Charles is so fragile.  So he uses his powers to unlock the door, and kisses Charles as he floats over the threshold, trying to stop thinking about anything but the feel of Charles' lips against his, the entirely-too-light weight in his arms, Charles' arms around his neck.     

"It's all right," Charles whispers.  "I know you don't believe we'll win.  You never discouraged me from my beliefs before; your pessimism isn't going to break me now." 

Erik sighs.  "I'm supposed to be holding you up.  Not burdening you." 

Charles laughs.  "My friend, you have it backwards.  Some days... some days they break me down, some days I can't remember what love feels like or that goodness exists in the world... but I _never_ forget that I want to prove you wrong.  Your disbelief keeps me going when I've forgotten every other reason I ought to fight." 

He's laughing, acting as if it's a joke, but Erik knows it isn't.  Charles is much more competitive, much more domineering, than he seems to be.  Erik can believe completely that if They manage to smash through all of Charles' goodness and break him down to raw chaotic selfish id, that he would still fight because his raw chaotic selfish id thinks it's just that important to prove that Erik is wrong.    

"Is that why you asked me to be your anchor?" Erik sets Charles down on the couch in the apartment. 

"I love you.  Isn't that enough?" 

"You know it isn't.  I may be the only person you want to go to bed with, but I'm not the only person you love." 

"You're the only person I love who can say 'no, you're wrong' to me without having to run away from home to do it.  You're the only one I can trust to see me as I truly am, without being blinded by hero worship or... or I don't even know what it is, but I can be wearing a helmet and they still all listen to me, they still all do whatever I say.  I never know whether the things they tell me about myself are what I really am or what I've somehow convinced them of."  He holds onto Erik's arm – merely a hand gesture at first, but by the end of his speech, he's pulling Erik down against him by that arm, clinging to the arm as if it's a lifeline.  "Only you can love me and live in a home with me and still say I'm wrong about halfway near everything.  Raven says I'm wrong, but she stays at a safe distance to do it, and Emma doesn't love me, and everyone else... I'm some kind of god, some kind of infallible mentor, Charles Xavier The Burning Bush.  I'm not the man who gets blasted drunk at pubs and tells chicks about their groovy mutations anymore; I'm not even sure they think I'm human, I mean, human the way mutants are human.  I don't know who I am when I see myself in them.  You're the only one." 

Erik breathes deeply.  "Well, Charles, if what it takes to keep you safe is to keep telling you you're wrong, I'm more than happy to oblige you, because you're still a naïve idiot more than half the time.  And besides, I'm a much better chess player than you." 

Charles laughs again.  "What, are you going to tell me you threw the last three games?" 

"We were playing strip chess, remember?  If you don't want me to throw the game, you can't give me the opportunity to do a striptease for you if I lose." 

"Well, perhaps I'll have to wear the green sweater again the next time we play strip chess.  You've been vocal about how badly you _don't_ want to see me in that, so I'm sure you'll play to win." 

"I'm afraid your green sweater had an accident.  It ran into a pair of errant scissors.  Accidentally." 

"A pair of scissors attached to a magnetic field and not a hand, I presume?" 

"A completely accidental magnetic field." 

"Of course.  Fortunately, I have about twenty of them back at Westchester..." He trails off.  He won't have time to go back to Westchester, not now, possibly not ever.  "...and also, if I ask Moira to buy me some awful green sweaters, she can expense them now because her budget for keeping telepaths happy is virtually unlimited." 

"Charles?"  By now Erik is actually lying on top of Charles, who's reclining on the couch with his head on the rest, because Charles has been pulling on his arm hard enough that it was genuinely difficult to avoid ending up on top of Charles... not that Erik was trying hard to avoid it, either. 

"Yes, Erik?" 

"Shut up," Erik says, and kisses him.  Not that Charles _can't_ talk with his mouth otherwise occupied, but if he's distracted enough, he won't be able to blather on telepathically either. 

This is all there is.  This is all there will likely ever be.  But if this is all there is, then it's enough.


End file.
